Ripple XRP has retaken the ranking of second largest cryptocurrency in the world by market capitalisation from Ethereum on Wednesday.
 
The news comes after an incredibly positive few weeks for XRP, which has jumped more than 100% to date in September.
 
According to analysis from Forbes, XRP “now boasts a market capitalisation of $22.2 billion, slightly beating out Ethereum's $22.1 billion, according to CoinMarketCap data at 8:30am New York time. Bitcoin, the original cryptocurrency, still holds the top spot by a wide margin however, with a total market value of $113 billion.”
 
Some experts have said that XRP was “given a further boost” by deVere Group’s founder and CEO, Nigel Green’s assertion earlier in the week that it is “going to gather momentum and its price is likely to reach the key threshold of  $1.00 by year-end.”
 
He noted: “XRP will go on to gain more traction than many of its rivals because of its unique features, technologies and problem-solving capabilities. 
 
“Many of these unique characteristics enable it to help businesses, including real estate and tech firms, to save money and speed-up and add more security to transactions.
 
“This is also why hundreds of financial institutions across the world are already working with XRP and this is a trend that is set to continue and grow.
 
“In addition, XRP has been cleverly positioning itself to become a leading international facilitator of global remittances and inflows.  This is a huge market in the expanding emerging economies of Latin America, Asia and Africa.”

The massive hike in XRP’s price last week was triggered by the firm behind the digital current, Ripple Labs, confirming that it is almost ready to launch a new product, xRapid, that could assist financial institutions in speeding-up transactions.
 
“I am very confident that in the next one month or so you will see some good news coming in where we launch the product live in production,” Sagar Sarbhai, head of regulatory relations for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, told CNBC in an interview.
 
But this was followed by an XRP spokeswoman saying that there isn’t yet an official commercial release timeline for xRapid.